Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/208

196 the policy which Athens exercised towards her allies, the issue of it tended greatly to confirm that direct authority which she exercised over them. This policy did not originate with Pericles, but it was quite in accordance with his views, and was carried out by him in the most complete man- ner. By the commutation of military service for tribute, many of the allied states had been stripped of their means of defence in the time of Cimon. It appears, however, to have been on the proposition of Pericles that the treasure of the con- federacy was removed from Delos to Athens (about B. c. 461 ; see Bdckh, Public Econ. of Ath. bk. iii. c. 15), and openly appropriated to objects which had no immediate connection with the pur- pose for which the confederacy was first formed, and the contributions levied. In justification of this procedure, Pericles urged that so long as the Athenians fulfilled their part of the compact, by securing the safety of their allies against the attacks of the Persian power, they were not obliged to render any account of the mode in which the money was expended ; and if they accomplished the object for which the alliance was formed with so much vigour and skill as to have a surplus treasure remaining out of the funds contributed by the allies, they had a right to expend that surplus in any way they pleased. Under the administra- tion of Pericles the contributions were raised from 4G0 to 600 talents. The greater part of this in- crease may have arisen from the commutation of service for money. There is nothing to show that any of the states were more heavily burdened than before (see Bockh, Public Econ. bk. iii. c. 15, p. 400, 2nd ed.). The direct sovereignty which the Athenians claimed over their allies was also exer- cised in most instances in establishing or support- ing democratical government, and in compelling all those who were reduced to the condition of sub- ject allies to refer, at all events, the more im- portant of their judicial causes to the Athenian courts for trial (Bockh, iii. c. 16). Pericles was not insensible to the real nature of the supremacy which Athens thus exercised. He admitted that it was of the nature of a tyranny (Thucyd. ii. 63). In defence of the assumption of it he would doubtless have urged, as the Athenian ambas- sadors did at Sparta, that the Athenians deserved their high position on account of their noble sacri- fices in the cause of Greece, since any liberty which the Greek states enjoyed was the result of that self-devotion ; that the supremacy was offered to them, not seized by force ; and that it was the jealousy and hostility of Sparta which rendered it necessary for the Athenians in self-defence to con- vert their hegemony into a dominion, which every motive of national honour and interest urged them to maintain ; that the Athenians had been more moderate in the exercise of their dominion than could have been expected, or than any other state would have been under similar circumstances ; and that the right of the Athenians had been tacitly acquiesced in by the Lacedaemonians themselves tmtil actual causes of quarrel had arisen between them. (Thucyd. i. 73, &c., especially 75, 76.) In point of fact, wo find the Corinthians at an earlier period, in the congress held to deliberate respecting the application of the Sauiians, openly laying down the maxim that each state had a right to punish its own allies. (Thucyd. i. 40.) If Pericles did not rise above the maxims of his times and country, his political morality was cer- tainly not belov/ that of the age ; nor would it be easy even in more modern times to point out a nation or statesman whose procedure in similar circumstances would have been widely different.

The empire which arose out of this consolida- tion of the Athenian confederacy, was still further strengthened by planting colonies, which com- monly stood to the parent state in that peculiar relation which was understood by the term KT]povxoi. {Diet, of Ant. art. Colonia.) Colonies of this kind were planted at Oreus in Euboea, at Chalcis, in Naxos, Andros, among the Thra- cians, and in the Thracian Chersonesus. The settlement at Sinope has been already spoken of. The important colony of Thurii was founded in B. c. 444. Amphipolis was founded by Hagnon in B. c. 437. These colonies also served the very important purpose of drawing off from Athens a large part of the more troublesome and needy citizens, whom it might have been found difficult to keep employed at a time when no military operations of any great magnitude were being carried on. Pericles, however, was anxious rather for a well consolidated empire than for an extensive dominion, and therefore refused to sanction those plans of extensive conquest which many of his contemporaries had begun to cherish. Such at- tempts, surrounded as Athens was by jealous rivals and active enemies, he knew would be too vast to be attended with success.

Pericles thoroughly understood that the supre- macy which it was his object to secure for Athens rested on her maritime superiority. The Athenian navy was one of the objects of his especial care. A fleet of 60 galleys was sent out every year and kept at sea for eight months, mainly, of course, for the purpose of training the crews, though the sub- sistence thus provided for the citizens who served in the fleet was doubtless an item in his calcula- tions. To render the communication between Athens and Peiraeeus still more secure, Pericles built a third wall between the two first built, parallel to the Peiraic wall.

The internal administration of Pericles is charac- terised chiefly by the mode in which the public treasures were expended. The funds derived from the tribute of the allies and other sources were devoted to a large extent to the erection of those magnificent temples and public buildings which rendered Athens the wonder and admiration of Greece. A detailed description of the splendid structures which crowned the Acropolis, belongs rather to an account of Athens. The Propylaea, and the Parthenon, with its sculptured pediments and statue of Athene, exhibited a perfection of art never before seen, and never since surpassed. Besides these, the Odeum, a theatre designed for the musical entertainments which Pericles appended to the festivities of the Panathenaea, was con- structed under his direction ; and the temples at Eleusis and other places in Attica, which had been destroyed by the Persians, were rebuilt. The rapidity with which these works were finished excited astonishment. The Propylaea, the most expensive of them, was finished in five years. Under the stimulus afforded by these works archi- tecture and sculpture reached their highest perfec- tion, and some of the greatest artists of antiquity were employed in erecting or adorning the build- ings. The chief direction and oversight of the